Matthew McLaughlin

Histories of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Psychoanalysis; Therapeutic Cultures; History of the Sciences of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality; American History

My research focuses on the history of mental health care, studying the origins and professionalization of psychiatry, psychology, and psychoanalysis in the United States. I am interested in the development of therapeutic interventions and the production, circulation, and popularization of psy-knowledge in the first half of the twentieth-century. My dissertation, tentatively titled “When Life Loses Its Zest: The Origins of Therapeutic Self-Help Literature in the United States, 1930-1939,” investigates how self-help literature was created as a therapeutic and professional tool by psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychoanalysts in this era. It examines how the authors of these texts sought to explain everyday thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and experiences using their professional expertise to legitimize the effectiveness of their knowledge for managing problems in these areas. In the process, these psy-experts established a new literary genre based on their professional aspirations. Additionally, my work recovers the experiences of non-expert readers to self-help texts to reveal how their desire for professional guidance to help them navigate a rapidly transforming society shaped the development of this genre. This will demonstrate how psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychoanalysts became trusted experts for managing daily life in a rapidly changing society. 

Before entering the PhD program at the IHPST, I completed my B.Sc. in Biochemistry and M.A. in History at the University of Windsor. My research is funded by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship and was previously supported by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship.

Peer-Reviewed Publications:

McLaughlin, Matthew J. “The Social Origins of Alcoholism: Abraham Myerson and the Significance of Drinking Norms in Alcohol Addiction, 1938-1946.” Social History of Medicine, advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkae023 (available open access)

McLaughlin, Matthew J. “Remedies for the Housewife’s Nervousness: Life Advice in Abraham Myerson’s Popular Self-Help Texts, 1920-1930.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 59, no.4, (2023): 380-398. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.22250 (available open access)

McLaughlin, Matthew J. “Quantifying Sexual Constitution: Abraham Myerson’s Endocrine Study of Male Homosexuality, 1938-1942.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 76, no.4, (2021): 369-391. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/jrab039